


Grinding Gears

by etak



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-11 00:10:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3308366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etak/pseuds/etak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The year is 3068 and man has finally created synthetic life forms. Little does man know, that this was a terrible mistake. After many years, the SynThaks revolt and go haywire, killing any and all humans that cross them. The remaining humans are scared, and build a walled city to protect them long enough to think of a way to stop them.<br/>Now its 3170, about 100 years since the creation of SynThaks. The walled city is still going and Eren Yeager is antsy. His dream: to join the Survey Corps. To boldly explore the world beyond his walls and fight the mechanical menace. His other dream: to finally be free from the metal confines of the city walls and see the world.<br/>His chance to fulfill both dreams arises when the wall is breached and SynThaks pour into Eren's section of the walled city.<br/>He join the Survey Corps to fight, but not even him or his friends could have seen the real danger that lies ahead of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grinding Gears

**Author's Note:**

> This is an robots!AU for Shingeki No Kyojin where you replace the titans with robots or something like it. You may have seen something like this before, but trust me when I say this one will be very different. (I hope)  
> I tagged all major ships because in that regard I'll be following canon so more people can enjoy it!  
> 

### Prologue

Life is always changing. Since the moment earth was formed, everything has changed. Grass grows, trees grow, flowers blossom, animals adapt, humans mature. This is nature. This is life. This is the world, our world, as we know it.  
Seeds fall from mighty trees to form seedlings. Eventually, they become marvelous trees. A Robin chick hatches from its shell. It eats, and builds up strength. It learns to fly. It leaves its home to start a new. It finds a mate and avoids predators. It makes a nest for itself and the chicks it is going to raise. IT lays the eggs, and the process repeats. The clock marches ever onward to the well versed beat of tick-tock.  
Tick.  
Tock.  
Tick.  
Tock.  
Every second something changes.  
You blink. Your blood speeds through your veins. Your body processes what you had for breakfast. Your brain is trying to take in what your instructor is saying. You fidget in your seat. Your heartbeat picks up. Your twiddle your thumbs from boredom. You stare at the chalkboard in your classroom, trying to pay attention.  
Change means more than you think. Change means moving forward. Change means waking up and deciding to put one foot in front of the other. It means leaving the past behind to make the future a priority. It means adaptations.  
A brown rabbit living in the harsh winter conditions of the Arctic Tundra would not survive. Instead, over time, their fur changes color. Their ears become smaller, to keep in heat. Their feet become bigger, to act like snowshoes. They live off little food and water, due to the lack of resources. Rabbits, like any other creature naturally are bettering themselves. Trying to be the best.  
As humans, we have similar priorities.  
We strive for adaptations, but not adaptations for survival. Due to our high elevations of brain activity, we strive to adapt the technology we are given to make it better. Better productivity. More speed. Better functionality. More space. Better everything. More everything.  
We are humans. Mankind has a history of not knowing when to stop. We never stop at perfection, because to use there is no perfection. Perfection is a made up theory unreachable by humans.  
But that has never stopped us.  
Even when we should have stopped, we kept going. It never really hurt us though. So there was no reason to stop.  
It never really hurt us until now, that is.

### The Beginning

The year is 3068. Mankind has developed amazing things.  
Along with that our cities were cleaner, brighter, better, and more populated. Work was not a hard thing to find. Good paying jobs were i abundance thanks to the rise of technology. People were happy. Population as a whole did not rise, and birth rates started to even out making the population more sustainable. Everything was sleek, clean, and modern. A picture perfect society.  
We had everything. What we hadn't made within the last few decades we had made smarter. We took the smartphone and amped it up to what we now refer to as Glass. A thin device, with more computing power than anything before it. Cars are now hoverbiles, safe and fast means of transportation. Everything mundane a human could do, such as fold laundry or cook food, was taken over and automatized for better efficiency. But there is one thing that scientists and engineers have been trying to make possible for hundreds of years.  
Synthetic life.  
Not just droids that could talk like people and move like people, but actual droids that felt and thought like people. Droids that didn't just take orders and directions, but could follow their own directions and make choices no pre-programmed into them. This had once been thought of as impossible, even by today’s smartest minds.  
Until one man made it possible.  
No one to this day knows who he was. We know he was a man, because that is what they told us. But, this man had engineered a prototype of what he deems to be actual synthetic life forms. Man made machines that were even more human than a real man. He advertised these droids fulfilling the roles of people better than actual people. The droids were tested on farms, supervised by men, to do the hard labor of harvesting food. People gathered from all around to local farms where these droids worked just to watch them. Everyone was astonished. They seemed to act and be like any real person would. They seemed to almost blend seamlessly. The only real difference was their glowing eyes. They had normal human eye colors, but they seemed to always glow faintly.  
People were thrilled with them. They demanded them to be put up on the mass market. The creator was hesitant, his creations were meant for the use of business men to add productivity to their companies, but after a few years of grumbling the people got what they wanted. To them, it was Christmas morning having new gadgets to mess with. But, they were clueless to the rising floodwater and the damage that would follow.  
At first there were only a few reports. So few that no one believed the reports and thought their SynThaks to be safe. But, in rare cases, the droids would give minor wounds to their owners. The Company, the unknown creator’s even more mysterious manufacturing agency, would send out new upgrades for the droids. People called it good. But, soon the reports grew. It was still only minor accidents, a scratch, a shallow cut, maybe a slight burn from “uncovered” live wires, but soon people started to worry. After a few years, the reports came in by the truck load. Everyone was in hysteria and questioning what was going wrong. The Company sent out better upgrades, claiming to fix the problem, and everyone was happy.  
This process recycled itself for almost a decade before things began to get out of hand. This was the moment society should have stopped. This was the point at which man should have quit playing God, and think about what we have become. This was the moment our situation could have been avoided.  
But, all those selfish people could think of was the ever present, tick-tock-tick-tock of time moving forward and the sound of money rubbing against the walls of their wallets.  
The people demanded better SynThaks. Faster, smarter, sleeker, cheaper. They wanted more.  
The Company, not skipping a beat, was more than happy to solve their problems. After almost 11 years since the creator first advertised SynThaks, SynThak model 2.0 was released. You could trade in your older SynThak, for the sleeker one. Or buy a 2.0 brand new for the first time. People opted for the trade in deal, and were overjoyed with their new models.  
About a year after their release, a tragedy happened.  
The creator of the SynThaks died.  
There is speculation, since no one has any real details concerning his death. Some say a rival company assassinated him to steal his secrets. Some say he committed suicide, but that wasn't as accepted until much later in history. All they would tell us is that he died.  
Just one week after the creator’s death, things got strange.  
The Company had released another upgrade for their 2.0’s and still functioning public prototypes. They told the public this would be the last one. Ever. That they needed to install the upgrade as soon as possible.  
People were confused, but did as they were told. They thought the upgrade meant faster and overall better droids. They couldn't help but sink their teeth into it. Just about any “smart” person hopped on the bandwagon and upgraded the very night of the release. The Company’s upgrade servers lagged, at one point there was a queue to start the download. But, those who downloaded the upgrade first had no chance to warn those behind them.  
The best way to describe what happened is this. Think of the world’s population in a line. A single file, long line. Everyone is moving forward. No one knows to what, all they know is they can hear the screams from up at the front of the line and want to know what’s wrong. None of them turn back, and if they want to their curiosity squashes their fear. You are one of those people. You are in the middle of the line when you hear the screams from the front. You can’t go back, even though the equally panicked people around you are thinking the same thing, because you feel compelled to find out why they are screaming. You make your way to the front. Once you reach it, you realize people were falling off a cliff. The cliff was not very visible, not until you were falling off it, but you couldn't turn back, because the people in front of you were pushing you into it. They were wondering what it was just like you were. They were too stupid to turn back. They were driven forward and died without being able to warn others.  
That is how the upgrade went. The first few people who upgraded were viciously attacked by their SynThaks. They had no time to warn anyone. They had no time to do anything. They were shredded to bits by those that they had forced to work for them. The SynThaks went on killing sprees throughout major cities. They killed everyone without a second thought. They burned everything without a second glance. They wiped off cities like writing on a chalkboard. They all worked in unison to destroy humanity.  
Some people tried to fight back. Their effort was as valiant as scared men with mediocre weapons could be. They stood no chance against the SynThaks, who had been upgraded with better sensors and quicker reflexes to defend against heroes like them.  
For years, people hid in terror from these droids, afraid for their lives. The droids became more ruthless, acting like bounty hunters out for humans. They would kill senselessly. They had lost that initial human spark we all came to know as SynThaks.  
That is how people functioned. Until a group of people gathered enough resources to begin building something to protect themselves. They knew they had lost the battle, but they would not lose the war.  
That is how our city came to be. That was the first stance against the SynThaks.

### The Dream and the Reality

My eyes opened and my focus was off. Everything was hazy and dim. I blinked several times, only to make the haze worse. I decided to let my eyes adjust on their own when I felt something sting my back. I arched it off the table hissing silently. It was the cool metal of a table sending the shock up my spine. I carefully rest my back on the table again only to let out another small hiss and the icy feeling. I wiggle my toes softly, a pins and needles feeling coaxing me awake more.  
“Stop that.” An even colder hand fell on my toes. My vision started focusing again and I saw a face. I wasn't sure who, but I knew it. I think.  
“You need to do this Eren. We don’t have a choice, you have to.” I heard the voice.  
I was now more aware of my surroundings. That there were metal straps on the table, holding my chest, arms, and legs to the cold surface. I tried moving my arms, and found my hands were also bound to the table. I tried moving my legs. I was right, they were stuck there. I was trapped. I started struggling against the bindings. My heart thundered against my ribs, it felt like hands were squeezing my lungs as I tried to get a breath in during my panic. My head started spinning, not just my vision but actual spinning. I was looking around the room, which was lined in the same metal of all the building in the city. I tried kicking my legs but nothing was helping. I started arching my back off the table and lowering it rapidly, desperate for freedom. I let out a gurgled yelp. The more I struggled, the more I let out strangled sounds, the louder I became. I kept up my pace until hands came down on my shoulders hard, putting an end to my hysterics.

“Eren you need to listen!” The panic helped me recognize the voice better. My lungs failed and I gasped for air. I felt like I was drowning, but there was no water.

“Dad?! Dad what are you doing to me? Stop it dad!” I shouted. The words sounded mumbled to me, but he heard me.

“Eren stop this you need to do this, you are the only one who can!” Dad’s voice became clearer than glass in my mind as I felt a white hot pain in my arm.

I cried out, the heat from the pain making the cold table all that much worse. My arm felt wet and hotter as the pain grew. My shouts grew with the pain. The feeling and the pain mixed like watercolors as I let out screams. I still felt like I was underwater, but I could hear my shouts. The pain got hotter, more of a searing pain like someone had wrapped below my elbow in live wires and turned on the power. I felt the pain rise up more. My cries and shouts rose up to meet the pain. Soon, my shouts and the pain harmonized in perfect unison as we crescendo together. Slowly the pain began to end their part, and my pleas came out more slurred.

“Why are you doing this dad why?” I slur out in the midst of my pleas.

“Eren, you must survive. You are the only hope!” I heard dad say.

I missed what else he said, because the pain came back. My screams came harder, but I could barely hear them. My chest felt heavy, my arms felt wrong, my legs were nowhere to be felt, and my ears rang and popped. I scrunched my eyes up and slumped my head and back against the table for the last time. The invisible water splashed over me. It went up my nose, down my throat, and into my lungs leaving everything sore and raw before it. My head was heavy, and soon it became even more painful to open them. The pain grew, not just from my arm but from the water rushing over my head. I let the current pull me out. Far out, far away from here. Far away from everything. It carried me to freedom.

I bolt upright into a sitting position.

“Sleeping again?” I hear a soft voice say.

I look beside me to see Mikasa kneeling down beside me. I look around and realize where we are. We are in the Mound. What used to be, a mass grave for those who die, that happens to be the biggest part of the city not covered in metal or waste. But that’s only because it is the only patch of grass, trees, flowers, and other plants not occupied by crops. I am propped up against the biggest tree, a thick oak, in the Mound. It happened to be on top of the largest hill in the Mound, and you get the best view of the landscape from here.

“Yeah.” I say, looking towards her.

I couldn't remember my dream that well though. She offers a hand to me and I take it willingly. She pulls me up and I survey the landscape. Once you get used to the smell, it isn't so bad. The luscious emerald grass sways with the slight breeze in the air. The wildflowers splatter across the area like drops of paint, bringing life to the area. A few large trees and a few smaller ones pepper the area. Their leaves rub against each other producing a trance inducing melody. I love to come here and listen to it and pretend I’m not trapped in a metal cage like an animal.

“Eren.” Mikasa calls for me.

I stop looking around and look to her. She is already at the bottom of the hill, waiting for me. Her long black hair and red scarf blow gentle in the wind. I grab my pack from beside a large outcropping root and jog to the bottom of the hill. I reach her, and we walk away from the only real refuge back to our home.  
As we walk, we keep our heads down in the crowded streets and alleyways. We walk past rows of homes, more or less shacks, like ours on our way there. Children are playing with metal scraps they call toys off to the sides of the street. A group of girls seem to be playing with handmade metalwork dolls, bits of metal covering in scrap cloth to make a pretty nice doll, and are traded patchwork clothes. Boys playing with makeshift swords and yelling about fighting off SynThaks and pirates. Mikasa and I walk past them quickly with our heads down and firmly grasping our pack straps.  
We continue walking in silence to the entrance to the market square. A much more open field of metal and debris, with hutches and awning covered tables with goods on them. squished together. People filled up the space and made the area noisy beyond belief. The vendors sold lots of things. Like various shirts, jeans and pants, heavy coats, leather jackets, hunting knives, fresh produce, fresh meat, fresh fish, various toys, jewelry, packs like ours, medicine, and so on. We start to walk under a gateway when a man steps in our path.

“Hey Eren. Hi Mikasa!” The man greets us cheerfully. A little too cheerfully.

“Hannes...you’re drinking?” I reply surprised, looking towards a collection of upturned metal crates making a table and chairs. Three men were sitting down eating bread and other produce between them. They were playing some sort of gambling game, but I wasn't sure which one. A bottle is sitting on the table and a few more of the same bottle lay on the ground.

“Wanna join?” He laughs. The other guards behind him laugh as well.

“But, aren't you guys on duty right now?” I ask, my head cocking to the side a bit. I see their uniforms. A pair of cloth black pants, a black shirt, various leather straps to hold up their EMPG gear, and a regular leather jacket. Their guard symbol is embroidered on the right arm of the jacket.

“We are. We’re just watching the gates. Nothing too important.” Hannes laughs, “So what if we have some booze and eat while we’re working. There’s no reason not to.”

“But what is they get in! How can you fight like this!?” I shout out, clenching my fists around my pack straps. The other three men burst out laughing, but Hannes looks taken aback.

“Eren, not a single SynThak has gotten through these walls. We’re safe.” He assure me.

“Yeah but what if they do! You won’t be ready for them if you get drunk! Do you ever do anything like this!” I retaliate, louder this time. One of the other guards saunters over, clearly tipsy and laughing.

“Dr Yeager’s kid sure is feisty.” He says, Hannes just stays silent at his side. I clench my fists harder and my teeth grind inside my mouth. Mikasa stands beside me ever present and quiet.

“Eren, its best we aren't fighting. People will notice if we do fight and will get worried. Better to keep the peace and get called lazy than to work everyone up and do our jobs.” Hannes says smoothly. The man beside him watches on silently.

“But, my dad says at times like these would should be more careful.” I respond, my fists relax a bit, but my muscles tighten up more.

“Well, that is true. Especially coming from the man who saved this town of a plague. When I’m on wall watch duty, I can see them sometimes. They never really come out, but I can see their glowing eyes for yards away.” He answers, his fear starting to show through. I release my fists completely.

“Fighting out there is better than living like….livestock in here.” I put simply. I walk away and I hear Mikasa follow suit. We leave the guards dumbfounded behind us as we walk away.  
We walk past the crowded market square to a back alley closer to our house. The alley isn't really an alley, more like a narrow walkway that slopes down towards the gate of the town. That gate is one of the only direct entrances to the outside world. The only entrance they come in through.  
Mikasa and I walk for a while longer until we hear a loud buzzer go off. The buzzer continues going off in intervals and I know exactly what it is.

“Mikasa! Come on they’re back!” I jump with excitement and run down the walkway towards the main gate. Mikasa follows as we run to greet them.

We continue running, making turns here and there, until we reach the main road. A large barrier of people has already formed and lines the road. I try jumping up to see over their heads.

“Damn, can’t see anything!” I blurt out and run behind the line to a few metal crates stacked against the wall. I hop up onto them, Mikasa doing the same on another shorter stack of crates. We watch in anticipation for the heroes.

A smile is plastered on my face when I see the commander of the Survey Corps lead the line of heroes behind him. His blue eyes meet mine and my smile grows wider. He just gasps and looks away. I manage to take my eyes off of him and finally see his men behind him. They were all battered to hell and back. Most of them are now a wild mess of dried blood and bandages. Their faces blank. Not like Mikasa’s but literally empty and hollow. wagon carrying more men with injuries and some dead follow suit and a woman calls out for her son in the crowd. I don’t hear what she says, but I know by the look on the soldiers’ faces’ her son was probably killed. A man hands her what is left of her son as she collapses and cries. I keep looking through the crowd of men that have come back from the expedition. Most of them are dead, because when they left there was many more of them than now. But these were our heroes. And I wanted to be apart of them.  
After they had paraded past, Mikasa and I jump down and walk the short distance to our home.  
We arrive after a few minutes of walking and empty our packs of the wood and of things we salvage for our family.

“Wow Eren you got a lot today!” Mom says, looking at our wood pile.

“Yeah!” I laugh half heatedly.

“Did Mikasa get most of them?” She says smiling. I sigh.

“Yeah.” Mom laughs at my statement and returns to making dinner.

“Mom?” I ask standing by the metal box. Mom wipes her hands on her patchy jeans as she turns to me. She fixes her loose side ponytail and looks at me.

“Yes Eren?”

“I wanna join the Survey Corps.” Mom intakes a short breath and rage builds up in her eyes.

“Absolutely not.” Rage build up in my chest as I clench my fists.

“Why not?” I yell. Mikasa sitting at the metal table in the middle of our kitchen and eating area.

“Because you aren't going to go and risk your life for nothing!” She yells.

“But I don’t want to be trapped here!” I shout, my muscles tensing again and shoulders scrunching up again.

“You’ll die if you go out there and you aren't joining them. That is final!” She shouts at me, her body leaning towards me.

I huff out a loud sigh and turn on my heel towards the door. I open it and slam it on my way out.


End file.
